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Ireland ranks 1st in “Good Country Index”
Today, Ireland was ranked #1 on a new report called the Good Country Index, released by British policy advisor Simon Anholt. And what makes a Good Country, you ask? The Index measures how countries contribute to the planet and the human race. Ireland ranked within the top 10 in four of the seven categories, securing…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Mid to Upper Seventies” by Conor O’Callaghan
Here in North Carolina, we’re experiencing our first week of temperatures in the 90s, so mid to upper seventies sounds pretty good to us. Conor O’Callaghan’s poem leads us to a comfortable sunny spot. Mid to Upper Seventies He rests The Narrow Road to the Deep North on an arm of the sunroom sofa-bed. He walks to…
Continue ReadingIt’s hot outside—get yourself a T-shirt
Oh, how we miss our interns! At least we have our t-shirts for company. . . The weather’s warming up, and our interns have all left for the summer. Heading into the dog days, the Press gets more and more deserted and we find that we have to enjoy whatever company we can find. Wherever…
Continue Reading“How do you sew the night?”: A poem in memory of Maya Angelou
We at Wake Forest University Press join the rest of the university, and the rest of the world, in celebrating Maya Angelou’s life and mourning her passing. In her memory, here is a poem that WFUP poet Michael Longley wrote a few years ago after seeing Shaker-designed quilts in New England. The Design Sometimes the quilts…
Continue ReadingThe Falls Road: Carson’s childhood neighborhood
WFUP poet Ciaran Carson, native of Belfast and resident still, has written intimately about his experiences in the most urban sections of the city. This week, The Irish Times published a review of a new book of photographs taken in the late 1960s through the 1970s on the Falls Road, a portion of Belfast known for violent clashes,…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Tomorrow” by Dennis O’Driscoll
I. Tomorrow I will start to be happy. The morning will light up like a celebratory cigar. Sunbeams sprawling on the lawn will set dew sparkling like a cut-glass tumbler of champagne. Today will end the worst phase of my life. I will put my shapeless days behind me, fencing off the past, as a…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Away” by Vona Groarke
Away We have our own smallholding: persimmon tree, crawl space, stoop, red earth basement, ceiling fans, a job. Hours I’m not sure where I am, flitting through every amber between Gales and Drumcliffe Road. I paint woodwork the exact azure of a wave’s flipside out the back of Spiddal pier and any given morning pins…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Let it Go” by Brendan Kennelly
This time of year is usually devoted to graduation ceremonies, a celebration of taking the next step, whatever that may be. Here’s to the next step. Congratulations to all of the graduates for the year of 2014. Let it Go Let it go Out of reach, out of sight, Out of the door and the window,…
Continue ReadingThe End of the Line
The temperature is high, the pollen is present, and graduation is just around the corner. However, with the arrival of springtime blossoms comes the departure of most of our staff. Interns Nicole, Maura, Amanda, Julie and Mike are all graduating, and Candide is retiring from Assistant Director. And while I feel inclined to use the…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Punctuation” by Ciaran Carson
By Michael J. Bennett (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Punctuation This frosty night is jittering with lines and angles, invisible trajectories: Crackly, chalky diagrams in geometry, rubbed out the instant they’re sketched, But lingering in the head. The shots, the echoes, are like whips, and when you flinch, You don’t know where it’s coming from. This…
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